Kokonoe Mercury
Kokonoe is a character from BlazBlue series, she makes her debut on BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger as an NPC, her playable debut was later in BlazBlue: Chronophantasma. Story Tager's and Lambda's superior at the 7th Agency, and also formerly Litchi's and Lotte's. She is a half-breed and the daughter of Jūbei and Konoe Ayatsuki Mercury, two of the Six Heroes, though she shows disdain for this fact, supposedly “staying angry for weeks” when Jūbei is mentioned. The reason behind this is that Jūbei left her in the care of the World Void Information Control Organization for a great deal of her childhood, apparently not staying around to act as a father figure to her. She has a deep hatred for Terumi, because he killed her mother, Konoe, and her aunt, Celica. She also has a strong dislike of Hakumen, but cooperates with him because she needs the Susanoo Unit to defeat Terumi and cannot figure out how to separate him from it. During the events of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, it is revealed that Kokonoe has created and stockpiled hundreds of nuclear warheads in her lab. Hakumen mentions that it was weapons like those that decimated the world a hundred years prior. In the end, after Ragna the Bloodedge successfully turned Noel Vermillion back into her normal state, his left arm was destroyed. Kokonoe was able to make Ragna a new mechanical arm, stating that a man who has not been in the habit of asking for favors asked her a favor. This man was Jūbei, and she agreed to do that favor, while also mentioning that they had not seen each other in 20 years. That Which is Inherited In the past, she worked alongside Relius Clover under a group known as the “Sin Architects”. The story behind this was further explained in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II's second Extra Story – that which is inherited. Kokonoe was offered a job by Relius to work on the Event Weapon; however, she refused. Relius then showed Kokonoe the then-newly created Ignis and Nirvana, after which they left to open the Kiln. After Relius opened the Kiln, the Black Beast was released, and Relius proceeded to tell Kokonoe that the only way to stop it is for her to use magic inherited from Nine. Relius explained that the very core of Event Weapons are created through part of the Black Beast, and Kokonoe's mother Konoe was the one who created the Arch-Enemy Event Weapons. She is skeptical of using magic, but after hearing Tager's scream, she no longer hesitated and unleashed Konoe's power – Infinite Gravity. She became exhausted afterwards and Relius decided to show his true colors; at this, Kokonoe became enraged and Nirvana (under her control) strikes Relius down, supposedly killing him. BlazBlue: Remix Heart Kajun Faycott was sent by Kokonoe to the Military Academy as an undercover spy in order to find and retrieve the Burning Red. The reason behind this was to find a power source for Tager that would be more permanent. Monitoring the Academy allowed Kokonoe to see that the ninth level was reacting strangely, which lead her to sending Kajun down to investigate. It wouldn’t be long until Kokonoe was asked to examine the remains of an alchemy based life-form by Kajun; Kokonoe quickly realized that the core of the creature belonged to the 7th Agency, which lead her to deduce that the creature itself must of been made by Cypher Albar, a former defected colleague. She noted that it would be difficult to smoke him out of the area, and that he had most likely changed his appearance since his time in the organization. Kajun would eventually deliver the news that she was unable to retrieve the Burning Red. Kokonoe revealed her motives for wanting it, and that her mother researched it thoroughly, finally adding that the one created by Cypher was likely a failure. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Realizing her plan of being able to bring Hakumen out of the Boundary and back into the real world, Kokonoe begins to explain the details of the hero's existence, stating that it is 'wonky' due to him being pulled straight out of the narrow space. The two converse, with Kokonoe revealing that she's his Observer, with her Observing being mechanically amplified due to Hakumen being almost too much to handle, however, Hakumen's temporal existence faded out of the headquarters and into another location; in response, Kokonoe immediately called up Tager to return to her so that she may send him out onto another mission – this time to detain the leader of the Six Heroes. Using communications, Kokonoe helped Tager navigate through the 13th Hierarchical City of Kagutsuchi until Noel Vermillion came to arrest Tager for trespassing on a city that was on Level D Alert Warning. Noel ordered for the communications channel to shut, however, because of the modifications made on Tager, the scientist still witnessed everything that happened. When the fight ended in Tager's favor, Kokonoe gave him a lecture on the Event Weapon that Noel wielded during the brawl – this quickly changed into berating her subordinate for going soft on the lieutenant because of her gender. Much later on, Kokonoe attempted to mechanically teleport Hakumen back to the 7th Agency headquarters, but she failed to as Hakumen nullified the intervention. She immediately commanded Ragna to run out of the area, while failing to get a hold of Tager as he was already too busy to intervene. BlazBlue: Chronophantasma In BlazBlue: Chronophantasma, she and Tager are allied with Kagura Mutsuki in helping to overthrow the Control Organization, which is that she had a chance to eliminate Terumi/Hazama as well. After her father fought Phantom, she is informed that Phantom is actually her own mother, revealed to be alive, but brainwashed by a spell. BlazBlue Appearances BlazBlue Warriors Kokonoe is one of the characters of the game. Crossover Appearances BlazBlue X Guilty Gear Kokonoe is one of the characters from Guilty Gear side. Marvel vs. Arc System Works She is one of the charatcers from Arc System Works side. Trivia *“Kokonoe” contains “Kokono”; the kun'yomi reading of the kanji letter for the number “nine” (九, on'yomi: kyū, kun'yomi: kokono); possibly a play on her mother Konoe's alias, Nine. Additionally, the Japanese diminutive ko (子) means “child”, so Kokonoe can be read as “Child of Konoe”. “Mercury” comes from the Latin Mercurius and is commonly associated with either the chemical compound, Hg, or with the Roman God Mercury (which the compound was named after). A “grimalkin” (Kokonoe's English nickname) is an old or evil-looking cat found in Scottish legends. During the 16th-18th centuries they were associated with devils and witchcraft and people tried as witches were often accused of having grimalkin familiars. A “bakeneko” (Kokonoe's Japanese nickname) is a demon cat found in Japanese legends. Regular cats can become bakeneko through various ways including their tails becoming forked in which case they can also be called nekomata. They have various supernatural abilities including but not limited to shapeshifting, manipulating dead bodies and cursing humans. *Her move naming theme is technology and scientific terms. *Kokonoe's birthday, April 18, is Invention Day. *The lollipop she licks is Silvervine Candy, which may possibly (or jokingly) give her skills for her eloquent speech, as shown in Taokaka's “Help me! Professor Kokonoe” ending, where Taokaka eats one whole and starts making long sentences with words that she could not have used otherwise. Kokonoe then states that she had no idea the candy would have that kind of effect on someone from the Kaka tribe. Tager states in BlazBlue: Chronophantasma that Kokonoe is actually addicted to the substance. **In general, it is common for people of Kokonoe's caliber in both fiction and real life to often have a lot of sweets in general, due to providing glucose for high blood sugar as it fuels the brain. **Added to this, Silvervine (Actinidia Polygama) is a plant which effects cats in a way reminiscent of catnip (though supposedly more intensely). It is found in the mountainous regions of Japan and China and is a popular cat treat in Asia. *Kokonoe is the third character to complain about having small breasts, along with Noel and Platinum. She gets extremely irritated at Makoto's breast size during her own “Help Me! Professor Kokonoe!” segment. She also gets quite angry at Noel during her “Help Me! Professor Kokonoe!” segment since Noel thought they could be great friends due to both of them having small breasts. *Kokonoe's electrocuted sprite reveals several lollipops hidden inside her jacket sleeves, similar to how Taokaka is hiding a pair of fish inside hers in the same situation. *Her fireball's color changes depending on which player is using her. If it is the first player, her fireballs are red, but if the second player uses her, the fireball's color changes to blue. *In BlazBlue: Centralfiction Kokonoe says that she is the only other SS-class rebel in history apart from Ragna, though it was a long time ago and Kokonoe erased all records of it, all that is known by the Control Organization was there was another SS-class rebel. *Kokonoe shares her English voice actress with Tsubaki Yayoi. 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